Dropshipping Business Tips for Beginners

Dropshipping is currently a very popular business model because of its simplicity, zero overhead, and more importantly, low costs of startup. Because of these reasons, dropshipping is a great opportunity if you want to start a new venture in the business world. The best thing about dropshipping is, you can sell a lot of diverse products without any inventory. This is how to start a dropshipping business for beginners.

Dropshipping Explained

Dropshipping is a very unique type of business since you don't have to hold or purchase any inventory but you can sell a very wide range of stuff. In this business, a customer would place an order, and then the dropshipping company would notify the distributor or manufacturer about the order and then the manufacturer or distributor would send the product to the customer on behalf of your dropshipping company.

Essentially, your dropshipping company will be the marketer since your company will display the products to the customers. The order of this business is simple and straightforward which is the customers will pay the dropshipper, and the dropshipper will pay the distributor or manufacturer, and then the distributor or manufacturer will send the ordered products to the customers.

Becoming a dropshipper is a great way to start a business for beginners since you don't need inventory of products, cost-effectiveness, the ability to sell products without a lot of overhead, and you don't need to worry about getting stuck with products that won't sell. But even though it sounds easy and simple enough, there are several things you should consider before starting to be a dropshipper.

How to Start

There are so many options with this type of business, so you need to choose your own business concept. This is important since your chosen concept will describe what you are selling and who are your marketing targets. You need to pick a specific demographic that you are sure will sell.

For instance, you might start to sell sneakers with low prices for young people. The sneakers you are marketing will have designs that will appeal to young people and the prices are low so mostly young people can afford them. Your concept will be a crucial foundation to build your dropshipping business since it will be connected to the products you sell, your website design and also your marketing campaign, so you need to spend some time with this.

After you know what kind of product you want to sell as a start, the next thing you should do is choose the suppliers that will also send the products to the customers. There are several important things you should consider when you are choosing the suppliers for your products.

The first thing you should make sure of is the quality of the products they have. If you sell products with high quality, then people will see you as a provider of quality products and the good image of your dropshipping company will increase. You can also choose to provide products with low prices even though the quality is not guaranteed. It depends on what direction you want to choose.

The next thing to start dropshipping business for beginners is to consider the profits you would get. Even though you just started, you should be able to generate a reasonable profit. Always consider the costs of transaction and shipping into your calculation. The range of profit you should get as a dropshipper should be around 15%-20%.

You should also consider the reliability of your suppliers since this will align with your company's reliability. You need suppliers that will send the orders with reasonable shipping times and expenses. To test this yourself, you can try to order several products from them and then note how they handle your order.

A lot of suppliers are overseas, so you need to consider it for you and your customers. You also need to make sure that their products are always ready. You also need to consider the return policy since a lot of suppliers don't have this. You need to determine your return policy based on what your future suppliers offer you.

Next is building your online store. This part is really tricky so if building a website is not your expertise, you need to hire some experts to do it for you. There are a lot of moving parts to build a good online store where you can display the products in a pleasing way, and a functional and proper purchasing and transaction system.

After your online store is built, you need to register it so you can operate legally in your country. Registering your business will give you and your dropshipping company legitimacy, legal protection, and various opportunities and benefits. To do this, it is recommended to hire a legal professional to ensure the smooth process.

Now that your online store is legally allowed to operate, you need to market your store so people can find it. To start, you can join an online community and not just try to sell the products you have, but also to help people with their questions. With this, you will be seen as an expert and a resource and people will try to find your online store.

You can also have specific pages on different social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook and then post there regularly about your products, sales, or any relevant contents such as tips and tricks. You can also run Facebook or Instagram Ads that will target a small and specific demographic as a start.

Conclusion

Starting a dropshipping business for beginners could be a great way to earn income since basically anyone could do it and doesn't have a lot of overhead to start. With the right products and demographics, and also a great and fully functional website, what started as a side hustle could be your main gig before you know it.